


red. and a little more red.

by inlovewithnight



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Head Injury, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 20:32:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5640961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kris doesn't want to talk about it. Not yet. Preferably not ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	red. and a little more red.

The locker room emptied out in stages. Kris stayed at his stall, fussing with tape and gear at first, playing with his phone next, and finally just resting his head against the wall and breathing in and out, slowly, once he was close to alone. None of the guys lingering would bother him. Just Zats and the baby goalie, the one up from Wilkes-Barre who wasn’t ready for a shootout. Not his fault. It was the first time he’d ever seen one, after all.

Still, they really could have used the win.

Kris breathed out again, pressing his forehead harder against the wall. It hurt, it hurt, but not enough. He needed the pain pressing the outside of his skull to match the pain built-up inside. The constant steady throbbing that was his life partner. Maybe balancing it out would make it stop.

He wanted to _hit_ his head on the wall, a steady beat to match his heart, but that would get the goalies’ attention enough that they might speak up anyway. Bother him. Or worse, go get someone and then Kris would have to make _them_ fuck off, and he was too tired.

He was so very tired.

He heard the door open and close, and then footsteps crossing the locker room toward him. Dress shoes, not sneakers. Could still be anybody.

“What?” he asked, keeping his eyes closed, his head still. 

No answer, and he sighed again, hearing whoever it was sit down beside him on the bench, facing out into the room. 

Kris worked his tongue against his teeth, suddenly aware that his mouth was dry and strange. “What do you want?”

Pascal’s voice startled Kris enough that he opened his eyes. “You doing okay?”

“Jesus.” Kris sat up and dragged his hand through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead. “What are you doing down here?”

Pascal shrugged, stretching his legs out and tucking his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket. “I’m a player relations liaison. I’m liaising.”

“That’s not official.”

“Eh.” Pascal shrugged again, staring across the locker room. Kris wanted to look away, but he didn’t; he stared at Pascal in profile like he could memorize or devour him, from his eyelashes to the five-o-clock shadow along the sharp line of his jaw. “It’s going okay so far.”

“What have they had you do so far?”

Pascal glanced down the line of benches, and Kris followed his gaze to where Zats was patting the other kid—Murray, fuck, Kris should remember his name—on the shoulder and heading for the exit. Murray had his headphones in and his phone in his lap, staring down at it with the intensity of a kid desperately waiting for either reassurance from a mentor or confirmation of an opportunity to get laid.

“I got to brief that one on the locker room rules,” Pascal said, his voice low to stay between them, just in case the headphones were only for show. 

“Rules in the room are the same in the A. Nothing different.”

Pascal snorted. “Bullshit. You know better.”

“Well, what did you tell him?”

Pascal tapped the heel of his shoe against the floor in a slow pattern. “The little stuff. Don’t get in Geno’s way even if he’s in a good mood. If there’s a line with food at the end, it’s first-come first-serve except Sid and Geno. Never tell the media anything they could use against Sid.” His foot stilled, but his eyes stayed riveted on the floor. “Don’t chirp you or Sid if you can’t remember something. Don’t comment when people are helping you guys out.”

Kris caught his breath between his teeth, a sharp hiss of air. “Fuck you.”

“Yeah, fuck me.” Pascal looked at him, his eyes sharp. “Let me see your phone.”

“Fuck you again. No.”

“Kris.”

That was all he said, just one word, just his name—not even sharply—but Kris reached into his pocket, took out the phone, and handed it over.

Pascal thumbed it open and tapped through to the calendar app. Kris stared up at the ceiling, trying to swallow past his dry throat, hating the moment, hating Murray for still _sitting_ there, so he couldn’t throw a tantrum even if Pascal would allow him to work up a head of steam. All he could do was sit. Play the part of the solid veteran. Hold himself together.

“Okay,” Pascal said after a moment. “I’ve got tomorrow and Friday’s schedules in, with two-hour, one-hour, and half-hour alarms.”

“I don’t need that many.”

“It’s better to have it over-covered than under-covered.”

“I don’t forget that many things.” He didn’t. Not really. Just when he was tired.

Pascal put the phone back in Kris’ hand and closed Kris’ fingers around it. Kris looked down at it, Pascal’s hand around his, warm and broad. Little scars on the skin from this and that over the years, hockey sticks and kitchen knives and whatnot. The calluses were already fading.

“How’s your head?” Pascal asked quietly.

Kris shrugged, still looking at their hands. “It hurts.”

“How bad?”

“The same as it hurts all the time.” Kris smirked. “Except when it hurts worse.”

“You’re impossible.” Pascal sighed and shifted his weight on the bench, his hand slipping to Kris’ wrist, his thumb rubbing a slow circle over the tendons. “You need to be careful—”

“Don’t.” Kris could be dangerous with a word, too. “Do not tell me to be careful.”

“I just mean that—”

“You do not have that right.” Kris pulled his hand away and pressed it against his face, over his eyes. He wasn’t very good at hiding, he never had been, but if Pascal was going to pull _this_ bullshit it was either hide or throw a punch, and the fucking child goalie was _still sitting there_.

“You don’t have that right anymore,” he said after a moment, and dropped his hand to his lap. “You know you don’t.”

Pascal exhaled slowly, through clenched teeth, and Kris wondered how close he was to throwing a punch himself. Maybe they would both feel better if they did. “All right,” Pascal said after a moment. “That’s fair.”

“Fucking right it’s fair.”

Pascal’s voice dropped so low that Kris had to incline his head toward him to hear it, despite himself. “I just don’t want to lose you.”

“You don’t have the _fucking right_!” His voice did rise that time, he could hear himself, and even if he couldn’t the clatter of Murray dropping all of his shit and scrambling to pick it up would have given it away.

Pascal cleared his throat. “Matt, maybe you could clear out, eh?”

“Yeah,” Murray mumbled. “Yeah, I’m going. Uh. See you.”

Kris waited until the door closed and then took a deep breath, looking up through his fucking hair that wouldn’t stay where it was put, ready to rip Pascal another asshole for _being_ such an asshole, and a hypocrite, and a—

Pascal put up a hand before he could speak. “Truce. I know I don’t have a right. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“What did you mean, then?”

“I don’t want to lose you the other way.” Pascal reached out and touched his fingertips to Kris’ forehead. “Where you… forget things. Forget yourself. I don’t…”

Kris wanted to pull back, wanted to punch him even more than before, but Pascal could always sway him, settle him, with a word, never mind a touch. He closed his eyes and leaned into the contact until Pascal turned his hand and it was his whole palm against Kris’ forehead, not just his fingertips. Blessed skin.

“I’m fine,” Kris said again, and there was a plea in his voice that he hated. He never begged for anything. He never allowed it. But he would beg Pascal for this, for the pretense of belief.

The silence stretched out long enough that his stomach twisted, but finally he heard Pascal exhale, and felt a kiss brush against his hair. “Yeah,” Pascal whispered. “You’re fine, mon frère.”

Kris cleared his throat, so dry it was painful, god, he needed water. “Merci.”

“Do you want to go grab dinner?” Pascal glanced at his watch. “Carole-Lyne knows I might be late, so if Cath doesn’t mind…”

“She wasn’t feeling well, she probably went to bed when she put Alex down.” Kris rubbed his face. “Sometimes I think I should send them home to live. See them on breaks and the off-season.”

Pascal snorted. “That seems likely, you sending your family away. About as likely as Cath agreeing to go.”

“It’s not good for her to worry about me.”

“Being away wouldn’t stop that.” Pascal nudged him with his shoulder, then again, with more force, until Kris looked at him. “And if this is because you think if I hadn’t had my wife around to call me out, I wouldn’t have stopped… well, you’re probably right. But I’ll be your wife about it even if Cath did go away. And so would Sid. And the rest of these assholes. Marc. Geno. You’ll have a whole room full of wives.”

Kris shook his head. “I feel like that could have been sexy, but you ruined it, because you ruin everything.”

“That’s really the job they gave me.” Pascal stood up and offered Kris his hand. “Come on. We’ll eat, I’ll take you home, I’ll completely rat you out to Cath about your terrible ideas, she’ll kick your ass. It’ll be fun.”

“If you tell her, I will end you, Dupuis.” Kris took his hand and let Pascal pull him to his feet. “I’m not ready to be done yet.”

Pascal didn’t let go. “I know.”

The best thing to do would be to stop talking. He couldn't. “You weren’t ready, either. And that didn’t stop it.”

The barest twitch at the corner of his mouth; not a smile. “No.”

Kris tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling, fighting for his control, feeling all the places where it wanted to break. “Ah... fuck.”

“Not quite yet,” Pascal said softly. “You’re not done yet. Not today and probably not tomorrow.”

“I guess.” Kris took a breath and nodded. “Yeah, okay. I guess.”

“Come on. Dinner. Checking in on your kid. Going to bed with your wife. Using expensive hair products. Those are pretty good things, yeah?”

Kris rolled his eyes, but smiled, and started for the door, Pascal falling in step beside him. Through the door, down the hall, and to the parking lot, they stayed hand in hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Richard Siken, "Detail of the Fire"


End file.
